Small Account Challenge Day 10: -$25 Risky Halted Day Trade

March 1, 2018

Small account challenge, day 10

First real red day. But it was very interesting.

Last night I started with an overnight hold of $TEUM. I was considering playing $ABIO again, and I really should have but decided against it. $TEUM had a crappy post/premarket as someone was pushing the stock down to 2.20 resistance level. It fought hard for the first ten minutes but eventually lost. Although it opened at 2.20 it started to recover and I held on for seven minutes, breaking my own rule of selling in the first five. My losses would have been better mitigated had I followed that rule. In at 2.26, out at 2.16 and down $56.

Frustrated, I did what no trader should ever do and I hear day traders saying it all the time. I looked for another stock to trade. That’s always bad news. $ATOS was popping so I found a pop after the first pullback to jump in on. What I should have done, if I was going to play it at all, was to wait for the second pullback and look for a bull flag to get in on. But I had just lost money so I was impatient. Had I waited, the second pullback had a picture perfect bull flag as you’ll see below so I got in it a little high at 0.735. None the less, it popped back up to 0.76-0.77 and I was trying to sell with limit orders but wasn’t getting filled fast enough so I switched to a market order and the bid/ask spread KILLED me. I got filled at 0.7294 on a candle that was popping 0.75. Day trading is all about fast execution and that killed me. Only a $7 loss but still.

Two red trades. I was looking for blood.

Got alerted to $TENX that had gotten halted but had news. Now after all the dumb decisions I had just made, why did I have to get smart now. I got alerted and noticed it at 5.18 but thought it was too risky. Started doing some work and looked away, came back a few minutes later and the stock was over 6! Still too nervous, looked away and came back the stock was popping to 8! Okay, I thought, let me try this. It got halted again and I knew it was either going to blow up or break down after the halt, but buyers were determined to get the stock to 10 so I could probably play it. BAM, in at 8.80 after the halt, out at 9.81 for a fast $40. Then the stock went to 11.46 of course before coming back down, but I was so nervous and my adrenaline was pumping so hard after making that trade that I was done. I mean I was literally shaking during and especially after the trade. I only went in 40 shares because it was rather risky, but man if I had gotten in when it was alerted I’d be rich! Well, I would have at least made up more of my losses on $TEUM and been green for the day. This baby went 159% from bottom to top!

So, the lesson is to sell fast. And the second lesson is only day trade if you have a good reason to. But when you find a good reason to, take advantage of it! At least until I get more comfortable at day trading.

Also, I’ve been working on learning more patterns and building some good ones into my TC2000 scanners. Once I get them figured out and tested, I’ll share the settings for you guys.